Demonstrators rally outside the Georgian parliament. Photo: Vano Shlamov/AFP/file photo.
By Misión Verdad – Aug 26, 2024
The Law on Supervision, Regulation, Action and Financing of Non-Governmental Organizations and Non-Profit Social Organizations was approved by the Venezuelan National Assembly. This piece of legislation will regulate the operation of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and has generated debates and controversies in Venezuelan society.
To provide an idea of the extent of funding that some NGOs receive in a specific area, such as “humanitarian aid,” Statista offers some data.
According to this service, the three largest donors in this area worldwide in 2023 (in millions of US dollars) were the United States, with US $9.5 billion, the European Commission, with US $2.1 billion, and Germany, with US $2 billion. The chart below shows the top 10 of the countries with the largest disbursements:
According to the graph, the flow of funding comes exclusively from the Global North, which in fact conditions the agenda of the recipient NGOs, who will inevitably have to align themselves with the geopolitical and geoeconomic interests of the donors.
The United States, by far the largest financier, provided a larger sum in grants than the combined annual GDP of Belize and Suriname in 2023. Among the greatest recipients are Ukraine, the Zionist colony, and Egypt.
To assess the scope of the regulations adopted by the Venezuelan legislature on this matter, let us compare this legislation with the regulations in force in the first three countries that claim to defend freedom of association outside their borders, but which severely restrict it within their own territory.
USA
In 1938, the United States Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was passed as an alleged response to Nazi espionage and propaganda infiltration of organizations and media. This marked a milestone by becoming the first worldwide regulation aimed at controlling the activities of what would later become today’s NGOs.
FARA not only regulates those who represent foreign governments but also any individual or entity acting on behalf of foreign interests, including non-profit organizations. This law covers any attempt to influence American public opinion on domestic or international issues.
It is important to emphasize that the FARA Act does not operate independently. On the contrary, it is complemented and reinforced by the Federal Campaign Act. Together, they establish a detailed regulatory framework that prohibits, at least formally, any type of foreign financing of US political parties.
With a narrative that proposes the defense of the United States against the influence exerted by other countries on its political affairs, for example, through disinformation and attempts to influence elections, the use of the FARA law has become a weapon to stigmatize and criminalize those that dispute the official narrative.
Thus, following the 2016 presidential elections and scandals over alleged “Russian manipulation,” FARA criminalized the activities that individuals and organizations associated with countries “hostile” to the United States carried out within their national borders.
The US treatment of the operations of Russia Today and the prosecution of Maria Butina, who was sentenced for espionage crimes, are two notorious examples.
European Commission
On 12 October 2023, the European Commission adopted a package of measures “in defense of democracy” ahead of the European elections to be held in 2024.
The main focus was a legislative proposal seeking to improve the transparency and accountability of so-called “interest representation activities on behalf of third countries” which aim to influence public policies, decision making, and mechanisms for the exercise of citizens’ civil and political rights.
Public access is guaranteed to the financial statements of organizations. These organizations must show publicly, in detail, the funds received from third countries, the identity of these financiers, and the specific objectives of each project.
According to the NGO European Civic Forum, this directive affects the operations of many organizations in various European countries: “This means, for example, that USAID funding, which is a lifeline for civic groups protecting the rule of law and democracy in Eastern Europe, will be covered by this directive.”
Other directives adopted by the European Commission that limit or regulate the activities of NGOs in Europe focus on money laundering, which would control the access to financial resources for these organizations.
The EU Directive, and specifically the Commission, follows in the footsteps of the US FARA Act by imposing increasingly severe restrictions on certain civil society organizations, requiring selective transparency that limits their ability to operate and silences their demands.
Like FARA, this directive criminalizes those who step outside the narrative fold of the “rules-based order” and, ultimately, the interests of the establishment, fitting into a broader trend that seeks to restrict civil and political liberties in Europe at will, as recently occurred with the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France.
Germany
The German case is peculiar because it does not have legislation that directly addresses the issue of NGOs and their regulation; therefore, the control that the federal state exercises over them, is exerted instead through various regulations such as the Companies Law, the Foundations Law, or the Lobbyists Registrationt Law.
Even at the constitutional level, Article 9, paragraph 2 of the Constitution explicitly states that “associations whose purposes or activities are contrary to criminal law or which are directed against the constitutional order or against the idea of international understanding are prohibited.”
The Lobbyists Registration Act, for example, ensures transparency by requiring registration and disclosure of funding sources. That is, the identity of donors must be disclosed if contributions received exceed €10,000 and provided that the contributions represent at least 10% of the organization’s total annual donations.
The provisions of this law are in line with the initiatives that have been carried out at the European Union (EU) level with the so-called Foreign Agents Law, mentioned in the previous section, that provides for the establishment of harmonized requirements in the internal EU market for the transparency of the representation of interests carried out on behalf of third countries.
There is a growing need for states to regulate NGOs
Recently, a complaint made by President López Obrador emerged in Mexico linking an NGO named Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad AC (MCCI) to having received donations in the order of over 96 million Mexican pesos from the US government between August 29, 2018, and January 23, 2024.
The head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Pablo Gómez, who was in charge of the investigation, said that NGOs such as MCCI benefit from tax-deductible donations but do not issue any public information about the destination of these funds, despite the fact that many of them are dedicated to political activity.
Gomez said that Mexicans “are obliged to ask Congress for permission to provide services to foreign governments. Is receiving donations equivalent to providing certain types of services or being under the supervision of foreign governments? A question that must be answered.”
Since 2018, MCCI’s main purpose has been to attack the government of AMLO and the ongoing Fourth Transformation, and all its actions have been directed in that direction, including its financing. As a result, President López Obrador sent a letter to President Joe Biden explaining the case and asking him to stop interfering, through this type of action, in Mexico’s politics.
In this context, the Mexican president has indicated that before the end of his term, he will submit a bill to regulate and limit the financing of civil society organizations in order to prevent what he considered “abuses” through donations made to them and tax deductions.
A problem for democratic stability
The opacity with which NGOs operate, which includes everything from lists of donors/financiers to work projects, is an issue that concerns many states and governments in the world.
Their regulation becomes a matter of national sovereignty when they begin to respond to the interests and agendas of the donor state or entity that, as we saw in the initial graph, are geopolitically dependent on the Global North and its objectives, which almost always converge around those of the United States.
The now-passed bill in the Georgian parliament that aimed at curbing Western interference and making NGO funding transparent triggered furious anti-government protests explicitly encouraged by Washington and Berlin. Through these organizations, Georgia’s integration into the European Union, NATO, and other “Euro-Atlantic” structures has been promoted, despite its historical and geographical reality.
“NGO rhetoric is a ploy to attack comprehensive public programs and state institutions that provide social services. NGOs side with the ‘anti-state [public sector] rhetoric’ of big business (one in the name of ‘civil society’ and the other in the name of the ‘market’) to reallocate state resources,” states James Petras, highlighting the tendency of these NGOs to demobilize and fragment social movements. These organizations, the sociologist says, are deeply dependent on external donations, often serve foreign interests, and promote an anti-state vision that weakens the role of the state and, by extension, the public sphere in general.
Venezuela: National Assembly Passes Bill on NGO Supervision and Regulation
Under this premise, they pressure for public resources to be diverted to areas where the state loses influence, promoting the privatization of the public sector and aligning national policies with foreign interests.
The issue is the need for the state, the only space with legitimacy to exercise sovereignty, to regulate, as it does with other institutions, the financing, powers, and behavior of this type of organization.
In Venezuela, at least in the last 25 years, we have witnessed countless moments where these organizations, which claim to be democratic, have served as a spearhead to promote violent and unconstitutional agendas in the country.
Recently, some NGOs have been linked to the post-election violence observed after the July 28 elections, and behind this action there is a foreign hand that promotes and finances such behavior. In this context, the regulation of the financing of these organizations is a matter of national priority, as it is in the United States, the EU, and Germany.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/SL
Misión Verdad
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution
